Kodiak signs first commercial contract to supply driverless trucks for public highways

First binding contract for public highways

Kodiak AI has signed its first binding commercial contract to supply driverless trucks that will operate on public highways: it will hand over 75 autonomous tractors to the California carrier DTL Transport starting in 2028, TechCrunch reports. DTL, a mid-sized carrier delivering fresh produce and goods to grocery chains, plans to use the equipment on several interstate routes — first on the Dallas–El Paso direction in Texas and along Interstate 20 between Dallas and Atlanta; Kodiak has already conducted testing and operations on both routes.

What changes in the business model

The deal marks Kodiak's transition to a Driver-as-a-Service (DaaS) model, in which customers own and operate the trucks themselves, while Kodiak licenses the technology and charges per mile. Until now, the company has mostly operated under a Trucking-as-a-Service model, where it owns and runs the trucks itself as a third-party carrier — this is how current clients Charger USA, Roehl Transport and Werner Enterprises operate on several routes in Texas, which Kodiak founder and CEO Don Burnett characterized as still pilot-stage. The first DaaS customer formally was Atlas Energy Solutions in 2024, but its 35 driverless trucks operate off public roads — in the remote Permian Basin of West Texas; according to Burnett, there could be up to 100 by mid-2027. DTL, however, became the first DaaS customer specifically for highways: the relationship began with a pilot last month in California, where a Kodiak truck with a safety operator in the cab autonomously hauled perishable freight about 225 miles along Interstate 5 and State Route 99 between Fresno and Los Angeles. “We want to be asset-light. We don't want to be in the business of running a trucking company,” Burnett explained in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch.

Timeline, finances and context

The contract was announced on the eve of Kodiak's next milestone: in December, the company plans to remove safety operators from the cabs and launch a fully driverless highway service, starting with freight deliveries for Ikea along Interstate 45 between Dallas and Houston. Kodiak went public in September 2025, and its shares have fallen 87% since their debut day, so the contract should give the company revenue growth and a positive benchmark. The value of the DTL deal is not disclosed, but based on the company's projections in its public 2025 investor presentation — $150,000–190,000 in annual recurring revenue per truck, with a licensing rate of about $0.97 per mile and roughly 225,000 miles driven per year — the contract, once all 75 trucks are delivered, could bring in at least approximately $11.2 million per year. Kodiak's push toward an “asset-light” model without its own fleet is shared by competitor Aurora Innovation, whose CFO previously cited a target of 30,000 driverless trucks by 2030.